Wednesday, August 23, 2006

Aaron and I have several piggy banks filled with change from my coin purse and his jean pockets. We haven't done anything with the money because we haven't felt like stuffing the coins into those paper tubes or forking over a percentage of it by using a coin counting vending machine.

Then Aaron noticed (probably because the sign was at the top of the machine and he is so tall) that at the Coinstar machine, you can get an iTunes card with no percentage taken off. Woo-hooo! There are Starbucks and other cards too!

11 comments:

Just to let you know my husband and I tried for the amazon card, but the darn thing didn't work and charged us the percentage. My husband was so annoyed he badgered the store manager to give us our percentage back.

If you haven't already, you might also check with your own bank. My bank (AmSouth) provides the service for free to account holders, you don't have to wrap the coins or anything, they just dump them into the counter and deposit the amount into your account. But they don't advertise the service, so when I mention it to friends and family who bank there, they're always surprised.

I've always avoided the Coinstar machines because of the percentage thing. I have never noticed the stuff about Amazon or iTunes on our machine, wonder if they all have that option?

As an alternative, we bought a little battery operated machine at Walmart. Pop the preformed coin wrappers in and go to work. We wrapped a couple of hundred dollars worth of coins the weekend we bought it. Now, we just stick it on the nightstand and dump our change as we go, wrapped instantly. :)

Funny you should post this about Coinstar. My husband and I pooled together our spare change and I took it over to a local Coinstar here in Venice, CA just yesterday and got an Amazon gift card for a total of $119.90. I redeemed the e-certificate at Amazon right away. I know I could have spent the money at Starbucks too, but if it were me, I'd forget the card at home when I was at a Starbucks and then have to pay out of my pocket anyway.